Norris Miertschin and Fort Bend County, the Katy Rotary Club, and Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9182 dedicate the Freedom Park Memorial Tower on Friday, September 11, 2015 in Katy.

Norris Miertschin and Fort Bend County, the Katy Rotary Club, and Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9182 dedicate the Freedom Park Memorial Tower on Friday, September 11, 2015 in Katy.

Photo: Thomas B. Shea

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Maria Salgado wears a jacket honoring her son, Benjamin Rosales, a Marine who was killed in Iraq. Rosales enlisted following two years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Fort Bend County, the Katy Rotary Club, and Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9182 dedicated the Freedom Park Memorial Tower on Friday, September 11, 2015 in Katy. less

Maria Salgado wears a jacket honoring her son, Benjamin Rosales, a Marine who was killed in Iraq. Rosales enlisted following two years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Fort Bend County, the Katy Rotary Club, ... more

Photo: Thomas B. Shea

Image 4 of 4

Norris Miertschin and a Texas A&M Corps member carry a wreath to dedicate to the Freedom Park Memorial Tower. Fort Bend County, the Katy Rotary Club, and Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9182 dedicated the Freedom Park Memorial Tower on Friday, September 11, 2015 in Katy. less

Norris Miertschin and a Texas A&M Corps member carry a wreath to dedicate to the Freedom Park Memorial Tower. Fort Bend County, the Katy Rotary Club, and Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9182 dedicated the Freedom ... more

Photo: Thomas B. Shea

Tribute to 9/11 victims, veterans unveiled in Katy area

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Maria Salgado watches a steady, gray rain come down over Freedom Park off Westheimer Parkway on Friday morning. Water sits in pools at the base of a 52-foot-tall steel and concrete monument, white against the gloomy sky. On its five-sided base, each branch of the military is inscribed: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.

Her son, Benjamin Salgado Rosales, was a Marine, one of the many men and women who felt compelled to join the military after the Sept. 11 attacks. He was 18 when he joined three years after the attacks. Twenty when he died.

Standing in a crowd of some 100 veterans, family members and officials, Salgado watched the opening ceremony for the new Freedom Park Memorial Tower at the far west edge of George Bush Park, just east of Fry Road.

Somber ceremony

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The project, which took four years to complete, was a partnership with the Katy Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9182 & Ladies Auxiliary, the Rotary Club of Katy, and Fort Bend County Commissioner Andy Meyers.

"It means people need to remember," Salgado said of the monument erected to honor both veterans and the victims of the attacks 14 years ago.

Benjamin Rosales was killed in the Al Anbar province of Iraq by a roadside bomb. Salgado, who opposed his decision to enlist for fear that she might lose him, said, "Some people come and say, 'I can imagine your pain.' Their imagination cannot reach so far." She's had others tell her she's lucky to still have her other children. "Even if I had 100, it would not be OK," she said.

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The opening ceremony is somber. The high school band that was supposed to play couldn't make it. The helicopter fly over was canceled due to rain. Huddled beneath umbrellas and a handful of white tents, the crowd bows their heads for the invocation. During the national anthem, Salgado lets out a quiet cry muted by the persistent rain.

"This tribute to our nation's patriots and this remembrance of those who died in the 9/11 attacks shows the world that you have not forgotten," Col. Rich Pannell, the district engineer and commanding officer of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Galveston District, told the audience. "It's a reflection of the types of sacrifices that the veterans have made in the past and they are making today."

The tower faced its own setbacks, including funding challenges and delays. But with more than $300,000 in donated materials and services from local businesses including Jeff Pantle's JP Southwest Concrete Inc., the completed monument is a testament to the persistence of people like Ken Burton, the state judge advocate for a VFW post and member of the Katy Rotary Club, and his fellow Rotarian David Frishman, also the project head. Also a member of the Katy Rotary, Meyers has helped guide the project since its inception in 2011.

"This is outstanding, and the support the community has shown coming out in this incredibly lousy weather, they are truly showing their respect and honoring the five military services and the victims of 9/11," Meyers said. "This park was something we tried to build for a long period of time, and I wanted to make it something special for the community."

The base of the monument contains a Bible, an American flag pin, items from the three 9/11 crash sites, U.S. Army Purple Heart medal, Fort Bend County flag, the VFW and Katy Rotary Club rosters and other artifacts donated by the community.

"It's a great monument," said Russ Richards, a Vietnam veteran who came to see the opening ceremony Friday. "The rain doesn't mean nothing to us. This means something to us."

A fellow VFW member, Richards said the Katy branch is known as one of the most active in all of Texas. "It's important somebody is here to witness this," Richards said. "It's extremely important somebody shows up."

Salgado remembers the day her son came home from Iraq. She thought she would be alone to get his body.

"I didn't know about the Patriot Guard Riders," she said of the national organization of motorcyclists who attend veterans' funerals. "I thought I would be by myself picking up my son from the airport and that I'd take him to the cemetery by myself. When I saw them it was like seeing angels around me."

She asked if she could join them at funerals in the future. "The next day they called me."

'They stood for us'

Several members of the Southeast Patriot Guard Riders attended Friday's ceremony, standing in the steady rain along with members of the Texas A&M University Ross Volunteers and the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Department's Honor Guard Unit.

A picture of Benjamin is printed on the back of Salgado's jean jacket. He is young and serious in his uniform. Patches cover the jacket, and obituaries of her son's friends also killed in combat are clipped in plastic sleeves on her breast pocket. But she remembers the others who have returned, often to an unprepared country.

"We need to get together to protect them, to feed them because so many are hungry."

"The rain is not going to stop me," she said at Friday's ceremony, just one of many such events she's attended since losing her son. "They stood for us no matter the condition."